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Monday, October 1, 2012

Animal Testing...

This topic has really been bothering me for the last few days, to point where I almost feel haunted. The discussion about animal testing arises here and there, and wherever I see it I see people mention more or less the same points. After I read an article on Austrian newspaper derstandard.at dealing with a newly proposed law to harmonize animal testing in the whole EU - well rather after I read the comments underneath, I started to wonder what people actually think about the average scientist. Then, a wild picture appeared on the wall of some page I liked on facebook, and I read the comments below, some of which made me feel really, really sick. To a point where I started to question my devotion to science, because I am slowly starting to consider letting humanity kill off each other and wasting away due to diseases a pretty positive outcome for this world.

This is why I decided to write something about it.

I understand - and I want you to understand - that this is a sensitive topic and I do not expect anyone to understand my point or even relate to it. I only wish to list some points that some people often seem to forget in such discussions, and I hope that after reading this, you will be able to make up your own mind about the topic.

First, I would like to ask you to give the following question a brief thought:
How many products do you consume every day that at some point in their development or production had animals involved? Most likely, people will think (if at all) about their food first. We have to kill animals to produce meat. Vegans will even go so far as to say that no animal product is free from animal cruelty and they should be avoided all together.
But how about cosmetics? What about your make-up? Do you know if your favorite brand performs animal testing in their research? And I'm not only talking about decorative make-up. What about your daily hygiene products, all your soaps and creams, your hair dye and whatever you may have. Do you know if the brand you buy from performs animal tests?
What about food additives? Do you eat a lot of processed food, that comes with flavor enhancements and preserving agents? (This goes out to the vegans too!) Are you aware that food safety also involves toxicological testing of food additives... in animals?

And what about drugs?

Do you take any drugs regularly? Do you suffer from chronic pain, migraines, or any other kind of chronic disease? Or do you have an elderly relative who has to takes drugs, maybe every morning?

The last point is the critical one. Everything above includes things that we can, if necessary, steer clear of, for example for the sake of animal rights. But when it comes to ourselves or our beloved ones, who really gives that little pill that they swallow to make the flu go away a second thought?

Yet when it comes to discussion the necessity of animal testing in "science" and "research" people are usually quick to condemn those who conduct these studies. Since I study in a scientific field, I will focus my post on this aspect of the problematic:

Animal testing for the sake of science and human health.

So let me explain something.
Every drug you take has to undergo a tough trial before its launch on the market. Basically, the drug developmental process goes somewhat like this:
A new substance is found or suspected to have some effect on a certain condition - for example, it inhibits the growth of cancer cells. First, research in vitro on cancer cell cultures shall prove if the substance really has that effect. If yes, it could be a potential new drug candidate.
So next there's the question - how does it work in vivo? In vivo means in a living (multicellular) being. So what follows next is usually a series of studies in animals to determine the effect of the drug, how it should be administered, and what is the best suited dose that ideally should kill the cancer cells, but not the test subject.
From this research you can get a basic idea what kind of reaction to expect when you give that substance to anything bigger than a heap of cells. Organ specific toxicity and secondary immune responses can be determined this way.
And then there comes the testing in humans. First, the drug is given to healthy adults. Because, as you might know, a model organism's body, such as a rabbit's, does differ from the human body a lot. So this test phase also serves to find the right dose in humans. Only then the drug will be tested in humans who have, following this example, cancer.

Animal testing currently serves as a "bridge" between the tests in vitro performed on cells, and tests in humans. So let me point out the following:

Everybody who is against animal testing, basically is FOR human testing as a consequence.

Because if you forbid animal testing, the drugs have to be tested in humans without proper knowledge about its reaction within a multicellular organism which consists of different organs and has a conscience. Testing in humans is already now a highly critical ethical debate. However, thanks to the animal testing beforehand it is at least somewhat safe to assume you will survive if you volunteer as a test subject.

Some people add at that point, that we must not (ab)use other species just because we have the power to do it. That we should feel sympathy with these creatures that we make suffer so much, just for our own selfish reasons. They ask "How would you feel, if somebody locked you up in a cage and performed horrible and painful experiments on you, just for their own species' good?"
As much as I like to feel sympathy for other living beings, I sometimes wonder if people who say that have any sympathy for their fellow humans. These are usually also those people who wish death upon everyone who is in favor of animal testing... which makes me wonder what their perception of "ethics" and "morality" really means. So I seriously wonder, what do these people do when they seriously fall ill? Do they turn down medication to not support the animal testing that was used to develop it? Would they rather die than take drugs? Would they watch their loved ones die just to prove their point, even if a simple antibiotic could help them? Would they really?

I often hear as an argument against animal testing that "animals are far too different from humans anyway, so all the research done in animals is useless and cruel!"
Well, this is not entirely true. While a lot of mechanisms in mammalian bodies are so complex that it's hard to even track down what is happening, when it comes to research of for example a potential new drug candidate, scientists of course choose so called model organisms that are in that specific matter (e.g. target cells and acting mechanism of the drug) as close to humans as possible. A lot of signaling pathways in our body, quite a part of our genome and thus so to say, the "basic rules" by which we function, are highly preserved between species, and thus a lot of fundamental research is performed in these model organisms to gain insight on how things work. This goes for cancer, Alzheimer's, cardiovascular diseases, hell, even obesity! Fundamental research needs model organisms to give us new ideas to target diseases and conditions, and if you forbid them to use animal tests, you deprive science of a huge possibility to understand how diseases work and why they happen as they do.

My favorite argument in this discussion is brought up very often, and I think mostly by people who have no idea what they are talking about (which, upon further questioning, can be found out quite quickly.)"There are TONS of alternatives to animal testing already, yet..."

And here comes the interesting part! The most likely mentioned reasons WHY these amazing alternatives are not yet used are....

1. Scientists don't give a fuck about animals! They are sadistic, mad geezers who devote their life to torturing animals!
2. Lobbyism! "They" don't want to use it so "they" prevent these super-new and awesome alternative methods from being made public (don't ask me who "they" are. Maybe Illuminati?)
3. Because animal testing is cheaper and easier, and scientists don't give a fuck about proper results (which obviously, the beforehand mentioned miraculous alternatives would yield!).

While I sincerely hope that my dear readers do not need me to refute 1. I do understand the concerns issued in 2. and 3.However, I do not know of any lobby that would be so insane as to secretly support animal testing to a point where they prevent laws from being issued, which is directly connected to 3. - it is, in fact, NOT cheaper to perform animal studies. Neither is it faster or more convenient. It requires a lot of room to house the animals, it is time-consuming to take care of them, it is expensive to keep them and it is a literal shitload of work. It's thus quite common to have people employed for the single purpose of taking care of the test animals. Think about it, if scientists could really do all the research they have to do in animals at the moment, with simple in vitro tests and computer simulations - do you really think they would still keep doing animal tests? Referring back to 1. - no, they would not, because they are no sadistic morons (generally speaking, not accounting for every individual).

It is also generally not true that there are "tons" of alternatives around. While there is a lot of research going on to improve the quality of in vitro tests and data derived from them, major problems with these tests are the sole applicability. While we might be able to make some pretty decent cell lumps in vitro, we are still not really able to predict organ-specific toxicity, or bioavailability of substances, or perform proper cancer research. As a matter of fact, the research project I'm working on, also remotely deals with this topic. I am thus actually involved in some research that could potentially help to improve in vitro testing.

This paper(which you probably unfortunately cannot access wholly, though I don't really know why, because earlier that day I could access the whole article, no I can't... sorry about that!) sums it up pretty nicely. Basically, we don't understand the mechanisms of, for example, toxicity, well enough to deduce the outcome in a living human being simply by in vitro testing and computer models yet. But if we put effort into research to understand these mechanisms better, we will have good chances to reduce the necessity of animal testing.

But let me assure you that wherever it is possible, scientists already switch over to these alternative methods. Because in vitro testing is much, much easier to perform and can be done by basically any lab. I even had a lab course where we learned some of the methods that are used in in vitro cancer research. So I don't say there are NO alternatives, it's just that they do not yet entirely suffice.

I do however agree (with probably most people) that animal testing in the cosmetics industry is really unnecessary. This goes without a question, but I do also admit that I do not keep track of which brand that does animal testing bought which other brand that does not, yet now is somehow related to it, so when you buy it you indirectly support animal testing - that's just madness. Yet at the same time one of the "big players" in cosmetics conducted dedicated research to finally produce an alternative testing method for potentially corrosive substances to be used on skin. Why should they do that, if they were not interested in alternatives themselves?
It is of course important to voice your opinion on animal testing in cosmetics, so that more and more brands will understand that we as consumers don't want them to test their products (or rather, ingredients) in animals. I think that no animal should suffer for our vanity. Yet I cannot take the same position when it comes to medical research, where we are talking about people's lives, and not about the radiance of their skin.

Bioethics is a very delicate topic, and I believe that every scientist and scientist-to-be who wishes to work in medical research has at some point given animal testing a thought. After all, if you want to do research to one day cure a disease, you are very likely to be conducting animal test studies yourself one day.
It is not that we enjoy killing fluffy little animals so much, that we perform these tests. It is because we want to understand the mechanisms by which things function, so that we can use that knowledge to make new fancy stuff like drugs against cancer. Seriously, when somebody thinks about going into research, I doubt they do it because they dislike animals so much they want to see them suffer - rather because they are highly motivated to discover something new that might be able to one day make a difference for some people who are sick.

So now let's target this from an even more ethical point of view:

People also often differentiate between "sentient" beings and non-sentient, (so they basically say we should not inflict pain on sentient beings for our own good), or at least try to, without actually being really able to define what they mean. But hell, even Molluscs appear to be able to feel pain, so what is there left, really?

Popular model organisms that are less cute and fluffy as your average lab rat or bunny are for example Drosophila melanogaster or Caenorhabditis elegans. What do you think about them? Is it okay to conduct research using them, or not?
Also, strictly speaking, and hypothetically, if scientists were able to breed a more or less brain dead strain of mice which is not capable of experiencing pain, e.g. due to a lack of Neurotransmitters - would it be okay to use these for research?

As you can see, there are various points to take into account when it comes to the discussion.
Don't get me wrong, I am not "for" animal testing. I am, from my current state of knowledge, convinced that animal testing is at this point still necessary to provide us with the means to conduct useful medical research (basic research as well as drug studies and the like). But that does not mean I do not hope that soon we will indeed have fitting alternatives to these tests.

It is my desire to one day contribute to research that might help to cure diseases that are at the current point considered lethal or hardly treatable. Yet I too wish to live in a world where one day, animal testing will be obsolete, because I am not a sadistic asshole that wants to cut open little fluffy rodents to rifle through their entrails.

And this is one of the reasons why I chose to actively contribute to this future that I am wishing for, by studying a scientific subject and hopefully one day working in research - instead of just stating the obvious, that, yes, there are many bad diseases out there, and yes, we cannot cure them all, and yes, animal testing is not so nice, actually.

I am just sick of being accused of being a sadistic asshole who is blind for the glorious alternatives to animal testing. Really, literally sick.

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